


Sleep

by sutyinabox



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, F/M, but hopefully everyone has seen it, there are feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-03
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2019-05-17 20:25:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14838599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sutyinabox/pseuds/sutyinabox
Summary: A little hurt/comfort for the night following the events of Infinity War.





	Sleep

This idea came form the second time I saw Infinity War, and I’m not entirely sure where it went. Enjoy none the less!

 

*****

There was a particular feeling when waking up from a dream, especially a bad one. Like a tight grip that let go, and allowed one to slow fall back to reality, and being released from the terror. 

Steve Rogers woke when he couldn’t breathe. He tried to take a deep breath, but it wouldn’t give. And instead, he began to choke. 

He pushed himself up, holding himself up with one arm against the mattress. He gasped for air, near panic that he would never be able to do it again. His chest burned and his muscles ached. 

Amongst the panic, he felt the bed shift under him, and soft hands enclose around his arm. 

“ Hey, deep breaths, deep breaths,” came Natasha’s airy voice. 

She sat up behind him, pressing against the arm that was trying to anchor him. The warmth from her body seeped in to his. 

“ It’s okay, you’re okay.”

Steve hunched over himself, and using what little means he had, managed to say- “ no, no, I’m not.” 

There had been nightmares before- a decent amount in the last couple of years alone, while they had been on the run. A lot of hideouts and seedy motel rooms, a lot of waking up in a panic when they’d be sharing a room and sam would be snoring in the room next to them (those wall were paper thin). 

Sometimes they’d be sharing a bed, or she’d end up in his- like she had done on this night. Sometimes he would barely wake up, and the most gentle of touches would do the trick. 

It had been this bad, but, there was never a reason for it to be. Until now. 

Natasha kneeled behind him, pressing the front of her body to the back of his. She wore a thin nightgown, on loan from the palace, and he was only in boxer shorts. It was nearly skin on skin. 

“ Feel my chest,” she spoke with such calm, the one clashing while he was waist deep in a panic attack. “ Feel how even I’m breathing, try to do that, try to match it.” She hooker her arms under his, splaying her hands over his chest. His heartbeat had moved on to a strong hum, and she could feel the struggle deep in his muscles. 

“ Can’t breathe,” he choked. 

“ Yes you can,” she tightened her hold on him, “ slowly let the air out. Very slowly...very slowly...come on.” 

He was cooperating, and she could feel it. She continued the same mantra as the progression continued. 

“ There you go, you got it.” She ran her hands up and down his arms as his breathing returned to (somewhat) normal. “ There you go, you’re back.” 

“ I’m sorry,” he gasped. 

“ Shh, don’t say that.”

Steve tried to look over his shoulder at her, “ when did you get here?”

She had been given her own room after the battle, they all had. But after less than an hour, the guest room (as luxurious and spacious as it was) became too big and too empty. She assumed he’d feel the same, and if not, she would pretend that he did. 

“ A little bit ago. I couldn’t sleep.” 

He slumped against her, a weight that she welcomed. It as not something he usually allowed, and wanted to be the comforter. But tonight, all previous roles would not be accounted for. 

“ I thought you might need me.”

“ It’s usually the case.”

She ran her hands up and down his right arm, and ducked her head to kiss the opposite shoulder. He was so warm, a luxury she was not sure she could ever do without- and how close it came to that being the very situation that could have been faced not hours ago. 

“ What if I had lost you, too?” he whispered, like he didn’t want her to hear him say that. 

“ But you didn’t,” she breathed against his temple. 

“ I could have.” 

“ And I could have lost you. And Tony could be dead, or he could be alive and God knows where. And Thor could have gone for the head, though he was the most successful one to begin with, so not sure he deserves much feedback there.”

Steve leaned forward, just out of her grasp, which his elbows resting on his thoughts. There was a huff of breath that he managed to let out. 

“ He was doing so good. Being here did him a world of good. He wasn’t having any flashbacks, no episodes, and apparently the tribal kids love him.”

Natasha rubbed her foot against his hip bone, “ Shuri spoke so highly of him. It almost seemed to hurt her as much as....”

“ Gosh,” he dragged out the entirety of the word with a long breath, “ we’re in the center of a country that has lost their king.” 

“ Everybody lost someone today. Doesn’t mean you can be any less upset.”

Steve looked over his shoulder again, and even in the simplicity of the moonlight, he could see her small smile. 

“ I thought you were one of them. I hadn’t had time to process it, but then you came around that bend and...”

She saw him shiver. Not that she felt this, or ever, would be the right time to say such, but she felt the exact same fear. After seeing Wanda turn to dust, literally, she worried about him over any of the others (not to say she was any less ungrateful for the others). 

He may have been broken, so broken. But as long as she had all the pieces, and him, she could put him back together again. 

“ Come on, lay down,” she said. 

He obliged, as he usually did with her. They scooted under the covers once again- her behind him, like when she snuck in hours ago. Usually, he’d take over as the big spoon and she’d let him because she liked it. No, she loved it. But tonight it was her turn. 

The crisp sheets smelled of fruit and flowers, and were cooling on their very much exposed skin. She settled with her nose nuzzling between his shoulder blades, the sheet tightly wrapped around them. He was so warm, even in the dead of winter, or the mountains of Alaska where they were hiding at one point, he’d keep her arm. 

Natasha tucked her arm under this, “ we’re going to get through this. We will.” 

They laid in sobering silence. for a bit. She could feel his breathing beginning to even out, and was hoping he’d be on the brink of sleep once again. 

And maybe he was. But the start of thick rain tapping on the large window the size of the wall on the opposite side of the room. He heard it first, and quickly pushed himself upwards. Natasha tried to use her hold to pin him down, but it did little good. 

“ It’s raining,” she felt the tension begin to fill him once more. “ It’s raining, the ashes are still out there.”

He was about to throw himself out of bed, before she snatched his wrist and yanked him backwards. She pulled herself up while attempting to push him back down. 

“ Steve, lay down, it’s okay.”

“ I can’t leave him again.”

“ I know, I know you can’t.” She held on to him in fear he’d fall off the ledge gain, “ I got him, before we all came inside. I...it...he’s in my room.” 

Steve eased up and treated to perch himself on his left arm, twisting himself to see her again. “ You did?”

Natasha ran her fingers up his back, “ I did.” Maybe not everything, but all she could, “ when you were busy with Okoye.”

He fell back on the mattress with an exhausted flump, landing on his back. 

“ Rhodey got Sam, and Wanda. Bruce helped with T’Challa, and Thor got Tree. Hopefully he’ll be willing to answer some questions about that tree at a later time.” 

“ Sam,” the name came out hidden in a long exhale. 

Her hand came to rest on his stomach, muscles clenching under her touch. “ I know, he deserved better. We have a lot to figure out.”

“ Like why there’s a talking raccoon and why Thor calls him ‘ Rabbit’.” 

Natasha smiled again, for the first time in days. And he was probably the last one to cause it, too.” 

“ He’s trying.”

She tucked in to his side, absorbing the warmth he had to spare yet again. 

“ You need to sleep.” Her fingers began to stroke the muscles of his abdomen, “ I know it’s been awhile.” 

And he knew that she knew. He hadn’t gotten much- if any- since Edinburgh, and was struggling before that as it was. She could feel his whole body ease and his breathing deepen. 

“ You’re not going back to you room, are you?” he mumbled on the edge of unconsciousness. 

“ Nah,” she tugged him a little closer, “ I think we’re going to need each other a lot more from now on.”


End file.
